PART I - The Rising Tide of Color
CHAPTER V
RED MAN'S LAND
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RED MAN'S LAND is the Americas between the Rio Grande and the tropic of Capricorn. Here dwells the "Amerindian" race. At the time of Columbus the whole western hemisphere was theirs, but the white man has extirpated or absorbed them to north and south, so that to-day the United States and Canada in North America and the southern portions of South America are genuine "white man's country." In the intermediate zone above mentioned, however, the Amerindian has survived and forms the majority of the population, albeit considerably mixed with white and to a lesser degree with negro blood. The total number of "Indians," including both full-bloods and mixed types, is about 40,000,000 - more than two-thirds of the whole population. In addition, there are several million negroes and mulattoes, mostly in Brazil. The white population of the intermediate zone, even if we include "near-whites," does not average more than 10 per cent, though it varies greatly with different regions. The reader should remember that neither the West India Islands nor the southern portion of the South American continent are included in this gener- alization. In the West Indies the Amerindian has com- pletely died out and has been replaced by the negro, while southern South America, especially Argentina and Uruguay, are genuine white man's country in which there is little Indian and no negro blood. Despite these exceptions, however, the fact remains that, taken as a whole, "Latin America," the vast land-block from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn, is racially not "Latin" but Amerindian or negroid, with a thin Spanish or Portuguese veneer. In other words, though commonly considered part of the white world, most of Latin America is ethnically colored man's land, which has been growing more colored for the past hundred years. Latin America's evolution was predetermined by the Spanish Conquest. That very word "conquest" tells the story. The United States was settled by colonists planning homes and bringing their women. It was thus a genuine migration, and resulted in a full transplanting of white stock to new soil. The Indians encountered were wild nomads, fierce of temper and few in number. After sharp conflicts they were extirpated, leaving virtually no ethnic traces behind. The colonization of Latin America was the exact antithesis. The Spanish Conquistadores were bold warriors descending upon vast regions inhabited by relatively dense populations, some of which, as in Mexico and Peru, had attained a certain degree of civilization. The Spaniards, invincible in their shining armor, paralyzed with terror the people still dwelling in the age of bronze and polished stone. With ridiculous ease mere handfuls of whites overthrew empires and forded it like gods over servile and adoring multitudes. Cortez marched on Mexico with less than 600 followers, while Pizarro had but 310 companions when he started his conquest of Peru. Of course the fabulous treasures amassed in these exploits drew swarms of bold adventurers from Spain. Nevertheless, their numbers were always infinitesimal compared with the vastness of the quarry, while the proportion of women immigrants continued to lag far behind that of the men. The breeding of pure whites in Latin America was thus both scanty and slow. On the other hand, the breeding of mixed-bloods began at once and attained notable proportions. Having slaughtered the Indian males or brigaded them in slave-gangs, the Conquistadores took the Indian women to themselves. The humblest man-at-arms had several female attendants, while the leaders became veritable pashas with great harems of concubines. The result was a prodigious output of half breed children, known as "mestizos" or "cholos." And soon a new ethnic complication was added. The Indians having developed a melancholy trick of dying off under slavery, the Spaniards imported African negroes to fill the servile ranks, and since they took negresses as well as Indian women for concubines, other half-breeds - mulattoes - appeared. Here and there Indians and negroes mated on their own account, the offspring being known as "zambos." In time these various hybrids bred among themselves, producing the most extraordinary ethnic combinations. As Garcia-Calderon well puts it: "Grotesque generations with every shade of complexion and every conformation of skull were born in America - a crucible continually agitated by unheard-of fusions of races.... But there was little Latin blood to be found in the homes formed by the sensuality of the first conquerors of a desolated America." (F. Garcia-Calderon, "Latin America: Its Rise and Progress," p. 49 (English translation, London, 1913).) To be sure, this mongrel population long remained politically negligible. The Spaniards regarded themselves as a master-caste, and excluded all save pure whites from civic rights and social privileges. In fact, the European-born Spaniards refused to recognize even their colonial-born kinsmen as their equals, and "Creoles" (Although loose usage has since obscured its true meaning, the term "Creole" has to do, not with race, but with birthplace. "Creole" originally meant "one born in the colonies." Down to the nineteenth century, this was perfectly clear. Whites were "Creole" or "European"; negroes were "Creole" or "African.") could not aspire to the higher distinctions or offices. This attitude was largely inspired by the desire to maintain a lucrative monopoly. Yet the European's sense of superiority had some valid grounds. There can be no doubt that the Creole whites, as a class, showed increasing signs of degeneracy. Climate was a prime cause in the hotter regions, but there were many plateau areas, as in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, which though geographically in the tropics had a temperate climate from their elevation. Even more than by climate the Creole was injured by contact with the colored races. Pampered and corrupted from birth by obsequious slaves, the Creole usually led an idle and vapid existence, disdaining work as servile and debarred from higher callings by his European-born superiors. As time passed, the degeneracy due to climate and custom was intensified by degeneracy of blood. Despite legal enactment and social taboo, colored strains percolated insidiously into the creole stock. The leading families, by elaborate precautions, might succeed in keeping their escutcheons clean, but humbler circles darkened significantly despite fervid protestations of "pure-white" blood. Still, so long as Spain kept her hold on Latin America, the process of miscegenation, socially considered, was a slow one. The whole social system was based on the idea of white superiority, and the colors were carefully graded. "In America," wrote Humboldt toward the close of Spanish rule, " the more or less white skin determines the position which a man holds in society." The revolution against Spain had momentous consequences for the racial future of Latin America. In the beginning, to be sure, it was a white civil war - a revolt of the Creoles against European oppression and discrimination. The heroes of the revolution - Bolivar, Miranda, San Martin, and the rest - were aristocrats of pure-white blood. But the revolution presently developed new features. To begin with, the struggle was very long. Commencing in 1809, it lasted almost twenty years. The whites were decimated by fratricidal fury and when the Spanish cause was finally lost, multitudes of loyalists mainly of the superior social classes left the country. Meanwhile, the half-castes, who had rallied wholesale to the revolutionary banner, were demanding their reward. The Creoles wished to close the revolutionary cycle and establish a new society based, like the old, upon white supremacy, with themselves substituted for the Spaniards. Bolivar planned a limited monarchy and a white electoral oligarchy. But this was far from suiting the half-castes. For them the revolution had just begun. Raising the cry of "democracy," then become fashionable through the North American and French revolutions, they proclaimed the doctrine of "equality" regardless of skin. Disillusioned and full of foreboding, Bolivar, the master-spirit of the revolution, disappeared from the scene, and his lieutenants, like the generals of Alexander, quarrelled among themselves, split Latin America into jarring fragments, and waged a long series of internecine wars. The flood-gates of anarchy were opened, the result being a steady weakening of the whites and a corresponding rise of the half-castes in the political and social scale. Everywhere ambitious soldiers led the mongrel mob against the white aristocracy, breaking its power and making themselves dictators. These "caudillos" were apostles of equality and miscegenation. Says Garcia-Calderon: "Tyrants found democracies; they lean on the support of the people, the half-breeds and negroes, against the oligarchies; they dominate the colonial nobility, favor the crossing of races, and free the slaves." (Garcia-Calderon, p. 50.) The consequences of all this were lamentable in the extreme. Latin America's level of civilization fell far below that of colonial days. Spanish rule, though narrow and tyrannical, had maintained peace and social stability. Now all was a hideous chaos wherein frenzied castes and colors grappled to the death. Ignorant mestizos and brutal negroes trampled the fine flowers of culture under foot, while as by a malignant inverse selection the most intelligent and the most cultivated perished. These deplorable conditions prevailed in Latin America until well past the middle of the nineteenth century. Of course, here as elsewhere, anarchy engendered tyranny, and strong caudillos sometimes perpetuated their dictatorship for decades, as in Paraguay under Doctor Francia and in Mexico under Porfirio Diaz. However, these were mere interludes, of no constructive import. Always the aging lion lost his grip, the lurking hyenas of anarchy downed him at Iast, and the land sank once more into revolutionary chaos. Some parts of Latin America did, indeed, definitely emerge into the light of stable progress. But those favored regions owed their deliverance, not to dictatorship, but to race. One of two factors always operated: either (1) an efficient white oligarchy; or (2) Aryanization through wholesale European immigration. Stabilization through oligarchy is best illustrated by Chile. Chilean history differs widely from that of the rest of Latin America. A land of cool climate, no gold, and warlike Araucanian Indians, Chile attracted the pioneering settler rather than the swashbuckling seeker of treasure-trove. Now the pioneering types in Spain come mainly from those northern provinces which have retained considerable Nordic blood. The Chilean colonists were thus largely blond Asturians or austere, reasonable Basques, seeking homes and bringing their women. Of course there was crossing with the natives, but the fierce Araucanian aborigines clung to their wild freedom and kept up an interminable frontier warfare in which the occasions for race-mixture were relatively few. The country was thus settled by a resident squirearchy of an almost English type. This ruling gentry jealously guarded its racial integrity. In fact, it possessed not merely a white but a Nordic race-consciousness. The Chilean gentry called themselves sons of the Visigoths, scions of Euric and Pelayo, who had found in remote Araucania a chance to slake their racial thirst for fighting and freedom. In Chile, as elsewhere, the revolution provoked a cycle of disorder. But the cycle was short, and was more a political struggle between white factions than a social welter of caste and race. Furthermore, Chile was receiving fresh accessions of Nordic blood. Many English, Scotch, and Irish gentleman-adventurers, taking part in the War of Independence, settled down in a land so reminiscent of their own. Germans also came in considerable numbers, settling especially in the colder south. Thus the Chilean upper classes, always pure white, became steadily more Nordic in ethnic character. The political and social results were unmistakable. Chile rapidly evolved a stable society, essentially oligarchic and consciously patterned on aristocratic England. Efficient, practical, and extremely patriotic, the Chilean oligarchs made their country at once the most stable and the most dynamic factor in Latin America. The distinctly "Northern" character of Chile and the Chileans strike foreign observers. Here, for example, are the impressions of a recent visitor, the North American sociologist, Professor E. A. Ross. Landing at the port of Valparaiso, he is "struck by signs of English influence. On the commercial streets every third man suggests the Briton, while a large proportion of the business people look as if they have their daily tub. The cleanliness of the streets, the freshness of the parks and squares, the dressing of the shop-windows, and the style of the mounted police remind one of England." (Edward Alsworth Rose, "South of Panama," pp. 97-98 (New York, 1914) 'Ross, p. 109.) As to the Nordic affinities of the upper classes: "One sees it in stature, eye color, and ruddy complexion.... Among the pupils of Santiago College there are as many blonds as brunets."2 Even among the peon or "roto" class, despite considerable Indian crossing, Professor Ross noted the strong Nordic strain, for he met Chilean peasants "whose stature, broad shoulders, big faces, and tawny mustaches pro-claimed them as genuine Norsemen as the Icelanders in our Red River Valley." (Ross, p. 109.) Chile is thus the prime example of social stability and progress attained through white oligarchic rule. Other, though less successful, instances are to be noted in Peru, Colombia, and Costa Rica. Peru and Colombia, though geographically within the tropics, have extensive temperate plateaux. Here numerous whites settled during the colonial period, forming an upper caste over a large Indian population. Unlike Chile, few Nordics came to leaven society with those qualities of constructive genius and racial self-respect which are the special birthright of Nordic man. Unlike Chile again, not only were there dense Indian masses, but there was also an appreciable negro element. Lastly, the number of mixed-bloods was very Large. It is thus not surprising that for both Peru and Colombia the revolution ushered in a period of turmoil from which neither have even yet emerged. The whites have consistently fought among themselves, invoking the half-castes as auxiliaries and using Indians and negroes as their pawns. The whites are still the dominant element, but only the first families retain their pure blood, and miscegenation creeps upward with every successive generation. As for Costa Rica, it is a tiny bit of cool hill-country, settled by whites in colonial times, and to-day rises an oasis of civilization, above the tropic jungle of degenerate, mongrel Central America. The second method of social stabilization in Latin America - Aryanization through wholesale European immigration - is exemplified by Argentina and Uruguay. Neither of these lands had very promising beginnings. Their populations, at the revolution, contained strong Indian infusions and traces of negro blood, while after the revolution both fell under the sway of tyrannical dictators who persecuted the white aristocrats and favored miscegenation. However, Argentina and Uruguay possessed two notable advantages: they were climatically white man's country, and they at first contained a very small population. Since they produced neither gold nor tropical luxuries, Spain had neglected them, so that at the revolution they consisted of little more than the port-towns of Buenos Aires and Montevideo with a few dependent river-settlements. Their vast hinterlands of fertile prairie then harbored only wandering tribes of nomad savages. During the last half of the nineteenth century, however, the development of ocean transport gave these antipodean prairies value as stock-raising and grain-growing sources for congested Europe, and Europe promptly sent immigrants to supply her needs. This immigrant stream gradually swelled to a veritable deluge. The human tide was, on the whole, of sound stock, mostly Spaniards and north Italians, with some Nordic elements from northern Europe in the upper strata. Thus Europe locked antipodean America securely to the white world. As for the colonial stock, it merged easily into the newer, kindred flood. Here and there signs of former miscegenation still show, the Argentino being sometimes, as Madison Grant well puts it, "suspiciously swarthy." (Madison Grant, "The Passing of the Great Race," p. 78. (2d edition, New York, 1918.)) Nevertheless, these are but vestigial traces which the ceaseless European inflow will ultimately eradicate. The large impending German immigration to Argentina and Uruguay should bring valuable Nordic elements. This same tide of European immigration has likewise pretty well Aryanized the southern provinces of Brazil, adjacent to the Uruguayan border. Those provinces were neglected by Portugal as Argentina and Uruguay were by Spain, and half a century ago they had a very sparse population. To-day they support millions of European immigrants, mostly Italians and European Portuguese, but with the further addition of nearly half a million Germans. Brazil is, in fact, evolving into two racially distinct communities. The southern provinces are white man's country, with little Indian or negro blood, and with a distinct "color line." The tropical north is saturated with Indian and negro strains, and the whites are rapidly disappearing in a universal mongrelization. Ultimately this must produce momentous political consequences. Bearing in mind the exceptions above noted, let us now observe the vast tropical and semi-tropical bulk of Latin America. Here we find notable changes since colonial days. White predominance is substantially a thing of the past. Persons of unmixed Spanish or Portuguese descent are relatively few, most of the so-called "whites" being really near-whites, more or less deeply tinged with colored bloods. It is a striking token of white race-prestige that these near-whites, despite their degeneracy and inefficiency, are yet the dominant element; occupying, in fact, much the same status as the aristocratic Creoles immediately after the War of Independence. Nevertheless, the near-whites' supremacy is now threatened. Every decade of chronic anarchy favors the darker halfbreeds, while below these, in turn, the Indian and negro full-bloods are beginning to stir, as in Mexico to-day. Most informed observers agree that the mixed-bloods of Latin America are distinctly inferior to the whites. This applies to both mestizos and mulattoes, albeit the mestizo (the cross between white and Indian) seems less inferior than the mulatto-the cross between white and black. As for the zambo, the Indian-negro cross, everybody is agreed that it is a very bad one. Analyses of these hybrid stocks show remarkable similarities to the mongrel chaos of the declining Roman Empire. Here is the judgment of Garcia-Calderon, a Peruvian scholar and generally considered the most authoritative writer on Latin America. "The racial question," he writes, "is a very serious problem in American history. It explains the progress of certain peoples and the decadence of others, and it is the key to the incurable disorder which divides America. Upon it depend a great number of secondary phenomena; the public wealth, the industrial system, the stability of governments, the solidity of patriotism.... This complication of castes, this admixture of diverse bloods, has created many problems. For example, is the formation of a national consciousness possible with such disparate elements? Would such heterogeneous democracies be able to resist the invasion of superior races? Finally, is the South American half-caste absolutely incapable of organization and culture?" (Garcia- Calderon, pp. 351-2.) While qualifying his answers to these queries, Garcia-Calderon yet deplores the half-caste's "decadence." (Ibid., p. 287.) "In the Iberian democracies," he says, "an inferior Latinity, a Latinity of the decadence, prevails; verbal abundance, inflated rhetoric, oratorical exaggeration, just as in Roman Spain.... The half-caste loves grace, verbal elegance, quibbles even, and artistic form; great passions and desires do not move him. In religion he is sceptical, indifferent, and in polities he disputes in the Byzantine manner. No one could discover in him a trace of his Spanish forefather, stoical and adventurous." (Ibid., p. 360.) Garcia-Calderon therefore concludes: "The mixture of rival castes, Iberians, Indians, and negroes, has generally had disastrous consequences.... None of the conditions established by the French psychologists are realized by the Latin American democracies, and their populations are therefore degenerate. The lower castes struggle successfully against the traditional rules: the order which formerly existed is followed by moral anarchy; solid conviction by a superficial scepticism; and the Castilian tenacity by indecision. The black race is doing its work, and the continent is returning to its primitive barbarism." (Garcia-Calderon, pp. 361-2.) This melancholy fate can, according to Garcia-Calderon, be averted only by wholesale white immigration: "In South America civilization is dependent upon the numerical predominance of the victorious Spaniard, on the triumph of the white man over the mulatto, the negro, and the Indian. Only a plentiful European immigration can re-establish the shattered equilibrium of the American races." (Ibid., p. 362.) Garcia-Calderon's pronouncements are echoed by foreign observers. During his South American travels Professor Ross noted the same melancholy symptoms and pointed out the same unique remedy. Speaking of Ecuador, he says: "I found no foreigners who have faith in the future of this people. They point out that while this was a Spanish colony there was a continual flow of immigrants from Spain, many of whom, no doubt, were men of force. Political separation interrupted this current, and since then the country has really gone back. Spain had provided a ruling, organizing element, and, with the cessation of the flow of Spaniards, the mixed-bloods took charge of things, for the pure-white element is so small as to be negligible. No one suggests that the mestizos equal the white stock either in intellect or in character.... Among the rougher foreigners and Peruvians the pet name for these people is 'monkeys.' The thoughtful often liken them to Eurasians, clever enough, but lacking in solidity of character. Natives and foreigners alike declare that a large white immigration is the only hope for Ecuador." (Ross, "South of Panama," pp. 29-30.) Concerning Bolivia, Professor Ross writes: "The wisest sociologist in Bolivia told me that the zambo, resulting from the union of Indian with negro, is inferior to both the parent races, and that likewise the mestizo is inferior to both white and Indian in physical strength, resistance to disease, longevity, and brains. The failure of the South American republics has been due, he declares, to mestizo domination. Through the colonial period there was a flow of Spaniards to the colonies, and all the offices down to corregidor and cura were filled by white men. With independence, the whites ceased coming, and the lower offices of state and church were filled with mestizos. Then, too, the first crossing of white with Indian gave a better result than the union between mestizos, so that the stock has undergone progressive degeneration. The only thing, then, that can make these countries progress is a large white immigration, something much talked about by statesmen in all these countries, but which has never materialized." (Ross, p. 41.) These judgments refer particularly to Spanish America. Regarding Portuguese Brazil, however, the verdict seems to be the same. Many years ago Professor Agassiz wrote: "Let any one who doubts the evil of this mixture of races, and is inclined from mistaken philanthropy to break down all barriers between them, come to Brazil. He cannot deny the deterioration consequent upon the amalgamation of races, more widespread here than in any country in the world, and which is rapidly effacing the best qualities of the white man, the negro, and the Indian, leaving a mongrel, nondescript type, deficient in physical and mental energy." (A. P. Schultz, Race or Mongrel," p. 155 (Boston, 1908).) The mongrel's political ascendancy produces precisely the results which might have been expected. These unhappy beings, every cell of whose bodies is a battle-ground of jarring heredities, express their souls in acts of hectic violence and aimless instability. The normal state of tropical America is anarchy, restrained only by domestic tyrants or foreign masters. Garcia-Calderon exactly describes its psychology when he writes: "Precocious, sensual, impressionable, the Americans of these vast territories devote their energies to local politics. Industry, commerce, and agriculture are in a state of decay, and the unruly imagination of the Creole expends itself in constitutions, programmes, and lyrical disoourses; in these regions anarchy is sovereign mistress." (Garcia-Calderon, p. 222.) The tropical republics display, indeed, a tendency toward "atomic disintegration.... Given to dreaming, they are led by presidents suffering from neurosis." (Ibid., p. 336.) The stock feature of the mongrel tropics is, of course, the "revolution." These senseless and perennial outbursts are often ridiculed in the United States as comic opera, but the grim truth of the matter is that few Latin American revolutions are laughing matters. The numbers of men engaged may not be very large according to our standards, but measured by the scanty populations of the countries concerned, they lay a heavy blood-tax on the suffering peoples. The tatter-demalion "armies" may excite our mirth, but the battles are real enough, often fought out to the death with razor-edged machetes and rusty bayonets, and there is no more ghastly sight than a Latin American battle-field. The commandeerings, burnings, rapings, and assassinations inflicted upon the hapless civilian population cry to heaven. There is always wholesale destruction of property, frequently appalling loss of life, and a general paralysis of economic and social activity. These wretched lands have now been scourged by the revolutionary plague for a hundred years, and W. B. Hale does not overstate the consequences when he says: "Most of the countries clustering about the Caribbean have sunk into deeper and deeper mires of misrule, unmatched for profligacy and violence anywhere on earth. Revolution follows revolution; one band of brigands succeeds another; atrocities revenge atrocities; the plundered people grow more and more abject in poverty and slavishness; vast natural resources lie neglected, while populations decrease, civilization recedes, and the jungle advances." (W. B. Hale, "Our Danger in Central America," World's Work, August, 1912.) Of course, under these frightful circumstances, the national character, weak enough at best, degenerates at an ever-quickening pace. Peaceful effort of any sort appears vain and ridiculous, and men are taught that wealth is procurable only by violence and extortion. Another important point should be noted. I have said that Latin American anarchy was restrained by dictatorship. But the reader must not infer that dictatorships are halcyon times for the dictated. On the contrary, they are usually only a trifle less wretched and demoralizing than times of revolution. The "caudillos" are nearly always very sinister figures. Often they are ignorant brutes; oftener they are bloodthirsty, lecherous monsters; oftenest they are human spiders who suck the land dry of all fluid wealth, banking it abroad against the day when they shall fly before the revolutionary blast to the safe haven of Paris and the congenial debaucheries of Montmartre. The millions amassed by tyrants like Castro of Venezuela and Zelaya of Nicaragua are almost beyond belief, considering the backward, bankrupt lands they have "administered." Yet how can it be otherwise? Consider Critchfield's incisive account of a caudillo's accession to power: "When an ignorant and brutal man, whose entire knowledge of the world is confined to a few Indian villages, and whose total experience has been gained in the raising of cattle, doffs his alpagartes, and, machete in hand, cuts his way to power in a few weeks, with a savage horde at his back who know nothing of the amenities of civilization and care less than they know - when such a man comes to power, evil and evil only can result. Even if the new dictator were well-intentioned, his entire ignorance of law and constitutional forms, of commercial processes and manufacturing arts, and of the fundamental and necessary principles underlying all stable and free governments, would render a successful administration by him extremely difficult, if not impossible. But he is surrounded by all the elements of vice and flattery, and he is imbued with that vain and absurd egotism which makes men of small caliber imagine themselves to be Napoleons or Caesars. Thus do petty despotisms, unrestrained by constitutional provisions or by anything like a virile public opinion, lead from absurdity to outrage and crime." (G. W. Critchfield, "American Supremacy," vol. 1, p. 277 (New York, 1908).) Such is the situation in mongrel-ruled America: revolution breeding revolution, tyranny breeding tyranny, and the twain combining to ruin their victims and force them ever deeper into the slough of degenerate barbarism. The whites have lost their grip and are rapidly disappearing. The mixed-breeds have had their chance and have grotesquely failed. The oft quoted panacea - white immigration - is under present conditions a vain dream, for white immigrants will not expose themselves (and still less their women) to the horrors of mongrel rule. So far, then, as internal factors are concerned, anarchy seems destined to continue unchecked. In fact, new conflicts loom on the horizon. The lndian masses, so docile to the genuine white man, begin to stir. The aureole of white prestige has been besmirched by the near-whites and half-castes who have traded so recklessly upon its sanctions. Strong in the poise of normal heredity, the Indian full-blood commences to despise these chaotic masters who turn his homelands into bear-gardens and witches' sabbaths. An "Indianista" movement is to-day on foot throughout mongrel-ruled America. It is most pronounced in Mexico, whose interminable agony becomes more and more a war of Indian resurgence, but it is also starting along the west coast of South America. Long ago, wise old Professor Pearson saw how the wind was blowing. Noting how whites and near-whites were "everywhere fighting and intriguing for the spoils of office," he also noted that the Indian masses, though relatively passive and "seemingly unobservant," were yet "conquering a place for themselves in other ways than by increasing and multiplying," and he concluded: "the general level of the autochthonous race is being raised; it is acquiring riches and self-respect, and must sooner or later get the country back into its hands." (Pearson, op. cit., p. 60.) Recent visitors to the South American west coast note the signs of Indian unrest. Some years ago Lord Bryce remarked of Bolivia: "There have been Indian risings, and firearms are more Iargely in their hands than formerly. They so preponderate in numbers that any movement which united them against the upper class might, could they find a leader, have serious conse- quences." (James Bryce, "South America," p. 181 (London, 1912).) Still more recently Professor Ross wrote concerning Peru: "In Cuzco I met a gentleman of education and travel who is said to be the only living lineal descendant of the Incas. He has great influence with the native element and voices their bitterness and their aspirations. He declares that the politics of Peru is a struggle between the Spanish mestizos of Lima and the coast and the natives of Cuzco and the interior, and predicts an uprising unless Cuzco is made the capital of the nation. He even dreams of a Kechua republic, with Cuzco as its capital and the United States its guarantor, as she is guarantor of the Cuban republic." (Ross, op. cit., p. 74.) And of Bolivia, Professor Ross writes: "Lately there has been a general movement of the Bolivian Indians for the recovery of the lands of which they have been robbed piecemeal. Conflicts have broken out and, although the government has punished the ringleaders, there is a feeling that, so long as the exploiting of the Indian goes on, Bolivians are living 'in the crater of a slumbering volcano.'" (Ross , p. 89.) Since the white man has gone and the Indian is preparing to wrest the sceptre of authority from the mongrel's worthless hands, let us examine this Indian race, to see what potentiality it possesses of restoring order and initiating progress. To begin with, there can be no doubt that the Indian is superior to the negro. The negro, even when quickened by foreign influences, never built up anything approaching a real civilization; whereas the Indian, though entirely sundered from the rest of mankind, evolved genuine polities and cultures like the Aztec of Mexico, the Inca of Peru, and the Maya of Yucatan. The Indian thus possesses creative capacity to an appreciabIe degree. However, that degree seems strictly limited. The researches of archaeologists have sadly discounted the glowing tales of the Conquistadores, and the "Empires" of Mexico and Peru, though far from contemptible, certainly rank well below the achievements of European and Asiatic races in mediaeval and even in classic times. The Indian possesses notable stability and poise, but the very intensity of these qualities fetters his progress and renders questionable his ability to rise to the modern plane. His conservatism is immense. With incredible tenacity he clings to his ancestral ways and exhibits a dull indifference to alien innovation. Of course the Indian sub-races differ considerably among themselves, but the same fundamental tendencies are visible in all of them. Says Professor Ellsworth Huntington: "The Indians are very backward. They are dull of mind and slow to adopt new ideas. Perhaps in the future they will change, but the fact that they have been influenced so little by four hundred years of contact with the white man does not afford much ground for hope. Judging from the past, there is no reason to think that their character is likely to change for many generations. . . Those who dwell permanently in the white man's cities are influenced somewhat, but here as in other cases the general tendency seems to be to revert to the original condition as soon as the special impetus of immediate contact with the white man is removed." (Ellsworth Huntington, "The Adaptability of the White Man to Tropical America," Journal of Race Development, October, 1914.) And Lord Bryce writes in similar vein: " With plenty of stability, they lack initiative. They make steady soldiers, and fight well under white or mestizo leaders, but one seldom hears of a pure Indian accomplishing anything or rising either through war or politics, or in any profession, above the level of his class...." (Bryce, op. cit., p. 184.) The truth about the Indian seems to be substantially this: Left alone, he would probably have continued to progress, albeit much more slowly than either white or Asiatic peoples. But the Indian was not left alone. On the contrary, he was suddenly felled by brutal and fanatical conquerors, who uprooted his native culture and plunged him into abject servitude. The Indian's spiritual past was shorn away and his evolution was perverted. Prevented from developing along his own lines, and constitutionally incapable of adapting himself to the ways of his Spanish conquerors, the Indian vegetated, learning nothing and forgetting much that he knew. This has continued for four hundred years. Is it not likely that his ancestral aptitudes have atrophied or decayed? Slavery and mental sloth have indeed scarred him with their fell stigmata. Says Garcia-Calderon: "Without sufficient food, without hygiene, a distracted and laborious beast, he decays and perishes; to forget the misery of his daily lot he drinks, becomes an alcoholic, and his numerous progeny present the characteristics of degeneracy." (Garcia-Calderon, p. 354.) Furthermore, the Indian degenerates from another cause - mongrelization. Miscegenation is a dual process. It works upward and downward at one and the same time. In Latin America hybridization has been prodigious, the hybrids to-day numbering millions. In some regions, as in Venezuela and parts of Central America, there are very few full-blooded Indians left, hybrids forming practically the entire population. Now, on the whole, the white or "mestizo" crossing seems hurtful to the Indian, for what he gains in intelligence he more than loses in character. But the mestizo crossing is not the worst. There is another, much graver, racial danger. The hot coastlands swarm with negroes, and the zambo or negro-Indian is universally adjudged the worst of matings. Thus, for the Indian, white blood appears harmful, while black blood is absolutely fatal. Yet the mongrelizing tide sweeps steadily on. The Indian draws no "color Iine," and continually impairs the purity of his blood and the poise of his heredity. Bearing all the above facts in mind, can we believe the Indian capable of drawing mongrel-ruled America from its slough of despond ? Can he set it on the path of orderly progress? It does not seem possible. Assuming for the sake of argument complete freedom from foreign intervention, the Indian might in time displace his mongrel rulers - provided he himself were not also mongrelized. But the present "Indianista" movement is not a sign of Indian political efficiency; not the harbinger of an Indian "renaissance." It is the instinctive fuming of the harried beast on his tormentor. Maddened by the cruel vagaries of mongrel rule and increasingly conscious of the mongrel's innate worthlessness, the Indian at last bares his teeth. Under civilized white tutelage the "Indianista" movement would have been practically inconceivable. However, guesses as to the final outcome of an Indian-mongrel conflict are academic speculation, because mongrel America will not be left to itself. Mongrel America cannot stand alone. Indeed, it never has stood alone, for it has always been bolstered up by the Monroe Doctrine. But for our protection, outside forces would have long since rushed into this political and economic vacuum, and every omen to-day denotes that this vacuum, like all others, will presently be filled. A world close packed as never before will not tolerate countries that are a torment to themselves and a dangerous nuisance to their neighbors. A world half bankrupt will not allow vast sources of potential wealth to lie in hands which idle or misuse. Thus it is practically certain that mongrel America will presently pass under foreign tutelage. Exactly how, is not yet clear. It may be done by the United States alone, or, what is more probable, in "Pan-American" cooperation with the Iusty young white nations of the antipodean south. It may be done by an even larger combination, including some European states. After all, the details of such action do not lie within the scope of this book, since they fall exclusively within the white man's sphere of activity. There is, however, another dynamic which might transform mongrel America. This dynamic is yellow Asia. The Far East teems with virile and laborious life. It thrills to novel ambitions and desires. Avid with the urge of swarming myriads, it hungrily seeks outlets for its superabundant vitality. We have already seen how the Mongolian has earmarked the whole Far East for his own, and in subsequent pages we shall see how he also beats restlessly against the white world's race-frontiers. But mongrel America! What other field offers such tempting possibilities for Mongolian race-expansion? Vast regions of incalculable, unexploited wealth, sparsely inhabited by stagnant populations cursed with anarchy and feeble from miscegenation - how could such lands resist the onslaught of tenacious and indomitable millions? The answer is self-evident. They could not resist; and such an invasion, once begun, would be consummated with a celerity and thoroughness perhaps unexampled in human history. Now the yellow world is alive to this momentous possibility. Japan, in particular, has glimpsed in Latin America precious avenues to that racial expansion which is the key-note of Japanese foreign policy. For years Japanese statesmen and publicists have busied themselves with the problem. The Chinese had, in fact, already pointed the way, for during the later decades of the nineteenth century Chinamen frequented Latin America's Pacific coast, economically vanquishing the natives with ease, and settling in Peru in such numbers that the alarmed Peruvians hastily stopped the inflow by drastic exclusion acts. The successes of these Chinese pioneers, humble coolies entirely without official backing, have fired the Japanese imagination. The Japanese press has long discussed Latin America in optimistic vein. Count Okuma is a good exemplar of these Japanese aspirations. Some years ago he told the American sociologist Professor Ross: "South America, especially the northern part, will furnish ample room for our surplus." (Ross, p. 90.) To his fellow countrymen Count Okuma was still more specific. In 1907 he stated in the Tokio Economist that the Japanese were to overspread the earth like a cloud of locusts, alighting on the North American coasts, and swarming into Central and South America. Count Okuma expressed a strong preference for Latin American countries as fields for Japanese immigration, because most of them were "much easier to include within the sphere of influence of Japan in the future." (The American Review of Reviews, November, 1907, p. 622.) And the Japanese have supplemented words with deeds. Especially since 1914, Japanese activity in Latin America has been ubiquitous and striking. The west coast of South America, in particular, is to-day flooded with Japanese goods, merchants, commercial missions, and financial agents seeking concessions of every kind. Our State Department has had to exercise special vigilance concerning Japanese concession-hunting in Mexico. Japan's present activity is of course mere reconnoitering - testings and mappings of terrain for possible later action on a more extensive scale. One thing alone gives Japan pause - our veto. Japan knows that real aggression against our southern neighbors would spell war with the United States. Japan does not contemplate war with us at present. She has many fish to fry in the Far East. So in Latin America she plays safe. But she bides her time. In Latin America itself she has friends - even partisans. Japan seeks to mobilize to her profit that distrust of the "Yanqui" which permeates Latin America. The half-castes, in particular, rage at our "color line" and see in the United States the Nemesis of their anarchic misrule. They flout the Monroe Doctrine, caress dreams of Japanese aid, and welcome Nippon's pose as the champion of color throughout the world. Japanese activities in Mexico are of especial interest. Here Japan has three strong strings to her bow:
Nevertheless, this incident reveals the trend of many Mexican minds. The framers of the "Plan of San Diego" were not ignorant peons, but persons of some standing. The outrages and tortures inflicted upon numerous Americans in Mexico during recent years are further indications of that wide-spread hatred which expresses itself in vitriolic outbursts like the following editorial of a Mexican provincial paper, written during our chase after the bandit Villa in 1916: "Above all, do not forget that at a time of national need, humanity is a crime and frightfulness is a virtue. Pull out eyes, snatch out hearts, tear open breasts, drink - if you can - the blood in the skulls of the invaders from the cities of Yankeeland. In defense of liberty be a Nero, be a Caligula - that is to be a good patriot. Peace between Mexico and the United States will be closed in throes of terror and barbarism." (The newspaper was La Reforma of Saltillo. The editorial was quoted in an Associated Press despatch dated El Paso, Texas, June 26, 1916. The despatch mentions La Reforma as "a semi-official paper.") All this is naturally grist for the Japanese mill. Especially interesting are Japanese attempts to play upon Mexican Indianista sentiment. Japanese writers point out physical and cultural similarities between the Mexican native races and themselves, deducing therefrom innate racial affinities springing from the remote and forgotten past. All possible sympathetic changes were rung during the diplomatic mission of Senor de la Barra to Japan at the beginning of 1914. His reception in Tokio was a memorable event. Senor de la Barra was greeted by cheering multitudes, and on every occasion the manifold bonds between the two peoples were emphasized. This of course occurred before the European War. During the war Japanese-Mexican relations remained amicable. So far as official evidence goes, the Japanese Government has never entered into any understandings with the Mexican Government, though some Mexicans have hinted at a secret agreement, and one Mexican writer, Gutierrez de Lara, asserts that in 1912 Francisco Madero, then President, "threw himself into the arms of Japan," and goes on: "We are well aware of the importance of this statement and of its tremendous international significance, but we make it deliberately with full confidence in our authority. Not only did Madero enlist the ardent support of the South American republics in the cause of Mexico's inviolability, but he entered into negotiations with the Japanese minister in Mexico City for a close offensive and defensive alliance with Japan to checkmate United States aggression. When during the fateful twelve days' battle in Mexico City a rumor of American intervention, more alarming than usual, was communicated to Madero, he remarked coldly that he was thoroughly anxious for that intervention, for he was confident of the surprise the American Government would receive in discovering that they had to deal with Japan." (Gutierrez de Lara, "The Mexican People: Their Struggle for Freedom" (New York, 1914).) But, after all, an official Japanese-Mexican understanding is not the fundamental issue. The really significant thing is Mexican popular antagonism to the United States, which is so wide-spread that Japan could in a crisis probably count on Mexican benevolent neutrality if not on Mexican support. The present Carranza government of Mexico is of course notoriously anti-American. Its consistent policy, notably revealed in its complaisance toward Germany and its intrigues with other anti-American regimes like those of Colombia and Venezuela, makes Mexico the centre of anti-Americanism in Latin America. As for the numerous Japanese residents in Mexico, they have lost no opportunity to abet this attitude. Here, for instance, is the text of a manifesto signed by prominent members of the Japanese colony during the American-Mexican crisis of 1916: "Japanese: Mexico is a friendly nation. Our commercial bonds with her are great. She is, like us, a nation of heroes who will never consent to the world-domination of a hard and brutal race, as are the Yankees. We cannot abandon Mexico in her struggle against a nation supposedly stronger. The Mexicans know how to defend themselves, but there is lacking aid which we can furnish. If the Yankees invade Mexico, if they seize the California coasts, Japanese commerce and the Japanese navy will face a grave peril. The Yankees believe us impotent because of the European War, and we will be expelled from American soil and our children from American schools. We will aid the Mexicans. We will aid Mexico against Yankee rapacity. This great and beautiful country is a victim of Yankee hatred toward Japan. Our indifference would be a lack of patriotism, since the Yankees already are against us and our divine Emperor. They have seized Hawaii, they have seized the Philippine Islands, near our coasts, and are now about to crush under foot our friend and possible ally, and injure our commerce and imperil our naval power." (The Literary Digest, September 16, 1916, p. 662.) The fact is that Latin America's attitude toward the yellow world tends everywhere to crystallize along race lines. The half-castes, naturally hostile to the United States, see in Japan a welcome offset to the "Colossus of the North." The self-conscious Indianista elements likewise heed Japanese suggestions of ethnic affinity. On the other hand, the whites and near-whites instinctively react against Japanese advances. Even those who have no love for the Yankee see in the Mongolian the greatest of perils. Garcia-Calderon typifies this point of view. He dreads our imperialistic tendencies, yet he reproves those Latin Americans who, in a Japanese-American clash, would favor Japan. "Victorious," he writes, "the Japanese would invade Western America and convert the Pacific into a vast closed sea, closed to foreign ambitions, mare nostrum, peopled with Japanese colonies. The Japanese hegemony would not be a mere change of tutelage for the nations of America. In spite of essential differences, the Latins oversea have certain common ties with the people of the (United) States: a long-established religion, Christianity, and a coherent, European, Occidental civilization. Perhaps there is some obscure fraternity between the Japanese and the American Indians, between the yellow men of Nippon and the copper-colored Quechuas, a disciplined and sober people. But the ruling race, the dominant type of Spanish origin, which imposes the civilization of the white man upon America, is hostile to the entire invading East." (Garcia-Calderon, pp. 329-330.) White men throughout Latin America generally echo these sentiments. Chile and Argentina repulse Oriental immigration, and the white oligarchs of Peru dread keenly Japanese designs directed so specifically against their country. Very recently a Peruvian, Doctor Jorge M. Corbacho, (Despatch to La Prensa (New York), December 13, 1919.) wrote most bitterly about the Japanese infiltration into Peru and adjacent Bolivia, while some years ago Senor Augustin Edwards, owner of the leading Chilean periodical, El Mercurio, denounced Count Okuma's menaces and called for a Pan-American rampart against Asia from Behring Strait to Cape Horn. "Japanese immigration," asserted Senor Edwards, "must be firmly opposed, not only in South America, but in the whole American continent. The same remark applies to Chinese immigration.... In short, these threats of Okuma should induce the nations of South America to adopt the Monroe Doctrine - an invincible weapon against the plans and intentions of that 'Empire of the Orient,' which has so lately risen up to new life, and already manifests so dire a greed of conquest." (The American Review of Reviews, November, 1907, p. 623.) From Central America similar voices arise. A Salvadorean writer urges political federation with the United States as the sole refuge against the "Yellow Peril," to avoid becoming "slaves and utterly insignificant";(The Literary Digest, December 30, 1911, p. 1222.) and a well-known Nicaraguan politician, Senor Moncada, (J. M. Moncada, "Social and Political Influences of the United States in Central America" (New York, 1911).) writes in similar vein. The momentous implications of Mongolian pressure upon Latin America are admirably described by Professor Ross. "Provided that no barrier be interposed to the inflow from man-stifled Asia," he says, "it is well within the bounds of probability that by the close of this century South America will be the home of twenty or thirty millions of Orientals and descendants of Orientals.... But Asiatic immigration of such volume would change profoundly the destiny of South America. For one thing, it would forestall and frustrate that great immigration of Europeans which South American statesmen are counting on to relieve their countries from mestizo unprogressiveness and misgovernment. The white race would withhold its increase or look elsewhere for outlets; for those with the higher standard of comfort always shun competition with those of a lower standard. Again, large areas of South America might cease to be parts of Christendom. Some of the republics there might come to be as dependent upon Asiatic Powers as the Cuban republic is dependent upon the United States." (Ross, pp. 91-92.) Very pertinent is Professor Ross's warning as to the fate of the Indian population - a warning which Indianista believers in Japanese "affinity" should seriously take to heart. Whatever might be the lot of the Latin American whites, Professor Ross points out that "an Asiatic influx would seal the doom of the Indian element in these countries.... The Indians could make no effective economic stand against the wide-awake, resourceful, and aggressive Japanese or Chinese. The Oriental immigrants could beat the Indians at every point, block every path upward, and even turn them out of most of their present employments. In great part the Indians would become a cringing sudra caste, tilling the poorer lands and confined to the menial or repulsive occupations. Filled with despair, and abandoning themselves even more than they do now to pisco and coca, they would shrivel into a numerically ncgligible element in the population." (Ross, PP. 92-93.) Such are the underlying factors in the Latin American situation. Once more we see the essential instability of mere political phenomena. Once more we see the supreme importance of race. No conquest could have been completer than that of the Spaniards four centuries ago. The Indians were helpless as sheep before the mail-clad Conquistadores. And military conquest was succeeded by complete political domination. The Indian even lost his cultural heritage, and became a passive tool in the hands of his white masters. But the Spaniard did not seal his title-deed with the indelible signet of race. Indian blood remained numerically predominant, and the conqueror further weakened his tenure by bringing in black blood - the most irreducible of ethnic factors. The inflow of white blood was small, and much of what did come lost itself in the dismal swamp of miscegenation. Lastly, the whites quarrelled among themselves. The result was inevitable. The colonial whites triumphed only by aid of the half-castes, who promptly claimed their reward. A fresh struggle ensued, ending (save in the antipodean regions) in the triumph of the half-castes. But these, in turn, had called in the Indians and negroes. Furthermore, the half-castes recklessly squandered the white political heritage. So the colored full-bloods stirred in their turn, and a new movement began which, if allowed to run its natural course, might result in complete de-Aryanization. In other words, the white race has been going back, and Latin America has been getting more Indian and negro for the past hundred years. This cycle, however, now nears its end. Latin America will be neither red nor black. It will ultimately be either white or yellow. The Indian is patently unable to construct a progressive civilization. As for the negro, he has proved as incapable in the New World as in the Old. Everywhere his presence has spelled regression, and his one New World field of triumph-- Haiti - has resulted in an abysmal plunge to the jungle-level of Guinea and the Congo. Thus is created a political vacuum. And this vacuum unerring nature makes ready to fill. The Latin American situation is, indeed, akin to that of Africa. Latin America, like Africa, cannot stand alone. An inexorable dilemma impends: white or yellow. The white man has been first in the field and holds the central colored zone between two strong bases, north and south, where his tenure is the unimpeachable title of race. The yellow man has to conquer every step, though he has already acquired footholds and has behind him the welling reservoirs of Asia. Nevertheless, white victory in Latin America is sure - if internecine discord does not rob the white world of its strength. In Latin America, as in Africa, therefore, the whites must stand fast - and stand together. |